Introduction It is important to have a theoretical foundation for any research.

This chapter will present a thorough review of the academic literature on the marketing strategies. The research studies conducted with the clear understanding of the existing theories and knowledge on the marketing strategies will help the researcher to keep focused on the achieving of the research objectives and to find out new information about the current research. This chapter will provide a deep look into the various marketing strategies, theories, techniques, etc. Marketing Strategy Marketing is the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational objectives. (American Marketing Association). The American Marketing Association includes planning, pricing, promotion, and distribution of goods and services as part of the marketing strategy. In addition, it also includes the satisfaction of the customers and the achievement of the organizational goals as part of the marketing process. Without any of these activities, the marketing strategy will not be effective. While American Marketing association includes the above attributes while defining the marketing concept, Kotler et al (1999) considers marketing as a key managerial aspect. According to Kotler et al, marketing is the exchange of services and goods in order to achieve the goals of individuals, companies, etc. The marketing strategy is a management process where the

marketing team is responsible for generating the lead about the target companies, qualifying those leads, meeting the customer requirements, and finally generating revenue for the company. In this manner, the marketing strategy gains strategic role in a company. Both the American Marketing Association and Kotler et al are stressing the need to satisfy the customer requirements in their explanation of the marketing concept. The marketing strategy in a way helps the companies to satisfy the requirements of the customers which will in turn retain the customers and increase their sales and customer base.

Not all companies use the marketing strategy for the same ways and same purposes. While some companies use the marketing to increase the profit, some others use it for increasing the customer base and to increase the market share. According to Liljedahl (2001), the marketing strategy can be used by the companies to gain competitive advantage in a competitive market where there are too many companies selling similar products and services. Here, Liljedahl (2001) adds a new dimension to the marketing strategy. He considers marketing as a tool to achieve competitive advantage. In this manner, the marketing strategies are key to the success of the companies in a market. In order to capture a greater market share, the marketing managers must plan the strategy based on the market environments. Therefore, Liljedahl provides importance to the planning phase of the marketing strategy. He says, when a company develops a well planned marketing strategy, it will help it to compete better than other competitors. A proper marketing strategy can function as the guidelines for the growth of the company and will help them to penetrate into the market, introducing new products. Farrel and Hartline (2002) also agree to Liljedahl saying that marketing strategy is a well defined, preplanned activity used by companies to increase their sales and brand awareness. As a panned activity, the marketing strategies change from time to time, based on the changes inside the companies and the changes outside the companies, that is external environments and internal environments. As the marketing strategies differ and are influenced by the external and internal market environments, there are many different marketing theories available today. Porters Marketing Theory Porter (1985) analyzed the market environments and their influence on the functions of the companies. Porter mainly wanted to study the attractiveness of a business or market and which factors influence the attractiveness of the market. Porter came up with the Generic Marketing

Strategy theory to find out whether a market is attractive enough for a company to enter into it. According to this theory, the attractiveness of a market and the profitability of a company greatly influenced or affected by five factors, which Porter calls as Five Forces and hence this theory is also called Five Forces Theory.

Five Forces Theory

Threat of New Entrants: One of the major forces that affects the attractiveness of the market and the profitability of a company in that market is the possibility for another company to easily enter into the market. When a market is attractive, foreign companies enter into that market to increase their business presence and to increase their market share. For example, the emerging economies, such as India, China, Brazil, and Russia will attract so many foreign companies into their market because of the growth and revenue opportunities these markets provide for the companies. When more and more companies enter into the same market, the share of the market will be split among all these companies which will result in the reduction of revenue and profit for the existing companies. Therefore, the entry of the new companies into a market is always a threat for the existing company although this will benefit the customers because it will bring more competition in the market leading to the reduction in the price of the products and services (Caves & Porter, 1977).

Threat of Substitute Products and Services: Another major concern for the existing company in a market is the threat of the availability of similar products and services in the market. When there is a substitute product or service available in the market for the customers, the customers

will have choices and it will be easy for the customers to switch their preferences over other products. When a market is dumped with substitute products, it will lead to a price war among the companies to reduce the price which will in turn affect the revenue and profit of the companies. When the profit is less, the attractiveness of the market will be less. In the current scenario where there are clone products for all the products, the market competition has become very complex and confusing. Also, in the current scenario we can see many clone products mainly from China which are very cheap. This puts pressure on the companies to concentrate more on the non price related attributes of the products and services, such as quality, etc. (Porter, 2001).

Threat of Bargaining Power of Customers: In a monopolistic market where there is only one company selling a particular product or service, that company will have the complete control over the price of the products and its attributes. However, markets are rarely monopolistic; once a company introduces a unique product, there is every possibility that many other companies will introduce similar products. When there are many similar products, the bargaining power shifts from the producer to the customers. As customers will have many choices, they will bargain hard with the sellers for a better price, better quality, etc. This will force the sellers to reduce the price and increase the quality, which in turn may affect their target revenue and profit (Porter, 2001).

Threat of Bargaining Power of Suppliers: The suppliers play a critical role in the growth and profitability of any companies. When a company enters into a market, it looks for better suppliers to supply them raw material or the finished products for a competitive price and within the time. When there are a few suppliers in the market, the sellers will find it difficult to get what

they want within their price limit. In such scenario, the suppliers will have greater power in bargaining and the buyers will have limited power of bargaining. On the other hand, if a market has lots of suppliers, the buyers will get the bargaining power because they can switch to another supplier easily. Therefore, the bargaining power of the suppliers also affects the profitability of the company and the attractiveness of the market (Porter, 2001).

Rivalry Among Competitors: When a market very attractive and offers high profits, the companies that compete in that particular market will go to any extent to get a greater share from the market. The rivalry among the competitors will lead to high competition in terms of pricing the products and services and this will result in either reduction of profit or innovation in technology. In todays market scenario, cost is a critical factor n becoming successful in the business. Companies must try very hard to keep the cost under control and pass the cost benefits to their customers (Porter, 2001).

Cost Leadership Theory

Cost leadership is the dream of every company who plans for a long term growth in every market they enter. In any industry, cost of production and cost of distribution will have a greater bearing on the pricing strategy of the product or service. The emerging markets are very much price sensitive and the pricing strategy plays a key role in ensuring the success in these markets. When a company gets the control of the production and distribution and reduces the costs involved in the production processes and the distribution processes, it will be able to bring down the price of

the product and gain leadership in the cost of the product or service. Cost leadership is not an easy task and every company in the market will be trying to keep the cost low either to reduce the price or to increase the profit margin. Therefore, companies need to develop innovative production and distribution techniques I order to really achieve the cost leadership (Amit, 2006).

Differentiation Theory

Differentiation theory goes one step ahead of the cost leadership strategy. According to the differentiation strategy, just reducing the cost or the price of the product may not attract the customers, because many companies will try to reduce the cost which will result in most of the companies reducing the price. From the point of view of the customers, this will mean that the price is similar for all the substitutes. Therefore, the real competitive advantage is the uniqueness of the product, that is how different is the product when compared to the other similar products. When the market is flooded with the similar products with similar features and functionalities, it is important for the companies to differentiate their products and build the brand based on differentiation strategy. Among the companies that used the differentiation strategy effectively, Apple Inc. is the best example. When MP3 players were available in the market, Apple Inc. created a niche market for their iPods. It is to be remembered that Apple Inc. did not invent the MP3 players. The MP3 players were already available in the market. What Apple Inc. did was to provide a different product in this market segment. Apple introduced the music playing and music storing in an innovative way through their iPods. It became an instant hit in the market, whch was followed by Apples MP4 players, iPad, etc. When companies like Sony suffered huge loss in the MP3 players segment, Apple created a niche market for their MP3 players and created

huge profit. Real differentiation strategy is to employ innovative techniques to create uniqueness that help a company to become profitable (R.E. White, 1986).

Market Focus Theory

Market is not homogenous; it has different types of customers with different demography. Therefore, targeting the given market as a single entity may not work well for companies. For example, a company should not sell the same product to all segments of the customers and all segments of the market. Companies must understand the market first before starting to sell their products in that particular market. The focus strategy theory propagates that the companies must segment each market and focus their energy on specific market segments and specific customer segments. For example, if the price of a particular product is very high, companies cannot sell that to a low income market segment. Therefore, companies must find the high income segments and sell their products in that market. To address the low income market segment, they have to come up with another product. By using the focus strategy, companies can specific products for specific markets which will increase their chances for succeeding in the market.

Competence Theory

The school of thought that mainly represented by Michael Porter maintained that the profitability of a market basically depended on the external forces, such as the threat of new entrants, threat of substitute products, threat of bargaining power of suppliers, threat of bargaining power of the customers, and the rivalry among companies, Prahalad (1990) says that the profitability of a

company is related to the internal competency of the company, such as their employees. Prahalad brought in a new dimension to the business strategy by concentrating more on the core competencies of the organizations than the external factors. Prahalad opined that even though the external market forces influence the functionalities of the company, it does not have the ability to make a company profitable or failure. However, if the company lacks in competencies within their stakeholders then the company cannot grow or become profitable. While Porters theories on marketing strategy focused more on the external business environment, Prahalad places more importance on the internal environment of the company. Prahalad is not the only proponent of the internal competence theory. Way back in 1957, Selznick (1957) explained that to become a successful company, companies must develop the skills of their employees and develop their core competencies. By developing their core competencies, companies can compete well with the other companies. This idea was further developed by Andrews (1971). He explained a business strategic framework, SWOT Analysis, wherein the company can analyze their internal capabilities and their external business environments. The SWOT Analysis in short is the combination of the Porters school of thought and the Prahalad school of thought. Before Prahalad, Chandler (1990) also examined the business strategies and found that the internal competencies play an important role in the growth of a company. By developing the human capital of a company, it can ensure a long term growth of the company. In this way, the skills of the employees become the most important factor in a companys growth.

Aaker (1996) in his journal article describes the need for companies to look into the inside aspect, meaning the internal strengths of the companies in order to compete well in the market externally. Aaker says that if the internal environment is strong with many strengths and less

weaknesses, the company will gain more in the external market environment. The internal strengths of an organization will help it to overcome the shortcomings of the external market environments.

The competency theory is also supported by the experiments of Bharadwaj, Varadarajan, and Fahy (1993). In their journal article, Bharadwaj, Varadarajan, and Fahy (1993) explain that the real need of the hour for companies to gain competitive advantage is to bolster its internal core competencies. The core competencies of the companies must be horned to enable it to face any challenges they will face in the market. All this point to the fact that the human capital is the most important factor in a company and the competencies of the employees are the most important factor to become profitable and best in the market. Sanchez and Heene (2000) analyzed the market environment and the business practices of the companies and compared them with the core competencies of the companies. Through this analysis, they proved that the core competencies of the companies were in fact helped them to become more competent with their major competitors and the companies were able to cope well with the unexpected business changes by using their existing core competencies. This also supports the Competency theory. However, the competency theory does not rule out the generic strategies of Porter or the Five Forces theory; on the other hand, the competency theory adds a new dimension to the existing marketing strategy theories.

Resource Theory of Marketing Strategy

As the marketing strategy theories by the Porters school of thought and the Prahalads school of thought were very important and both highlighted the important aspects of the modern business process, some theorists understood that there is a need to have a theory that combines these two theories. The result of this thinking was the resource based marketing strategy theory. The main proponents of this theory of marketing strategy were Hooley Piercy, and Nicoulaud (2008). These authors argued that in order to become profitable, a company must be aware of the external market environments and also concentrate on developing the core competencies of the company. There is a need for companies to focus equally to the external business environments and the internal business environments. This theory states that the companies must understand the changes happening in the external market and develop their competencies based on the changes in the external market. This would mean that as the external market keeps on changing based on the changes in the requirements of the customers, the company must also undergo changes in its competencies in order to cater to the changed requirements of the customers.

Birger Wernerfelt (2006) argued that the marketing strategy is a long term oriented one and therefore must work towards the long term achievements of the companies. This would need the companies to become ready to undergo constant changes to reflect to the changes happening in the external market. The companies that do not change based on the changes in the market will lose to their competitors. Therefore, according to the resource based marketing strategy, a company develops its marketing strategies combining the external environments and the internal core competencies.

A good marketing strategy is one that takes care of the internal competencies, such as the skills of the employees, stakeholders, etc. Also, the marketing strategy must consider the customer environments, such as the needs of the customers, customers buying behavior, etc. The third important factor that companies must take care while developing a marketing strategy is to consider the market environment, such as the changing market environments, competition in the market, new comers in the market, availability of the substitute products and services, bargaining power of the suppliers, etc.

Market Segmentation Theory Another major theory on marketing is the segmentation of the market based on several key factors. The major factors for segmenting the market are the buying behavior, purchasing power of the customers, age slots of the customers, demography of the customers, gender of the customers, etc. The concept of market segmentation is not a new one. Way back in 1933, Chamberlin (1933), argued that for the companies to become competitive in the market, they must understand the market thoroughly and divide the market based on several factors. This segmentation will help the companies to target specific customers, satisfying the customer needs. The market segmentation is very important when a company has a unique product, not a generic product, and when a company wants to get a greater market share within a target customer group. There are several techniques in order to effectively segment the market. Companies can use factor analysis, cluster analysis, latent class modeling, etc. to segment the market they are targeting to capture (Myers, 1996). Market segmentation can be called a cyclical process that involves the company to correctly segmenting the market. After segmenting the market, the company must focus on the specific

target customer segments. In order to effectively target the specific market segments, the company must constantly develop specific marketing mix that will suit the targeted specific market segment. As discussed above, the differentiation strategy of marketing also targets specific customers with a unique product or services. Therefore, some authors (Dickson, JL Ginter, 1987) use the differentiation strategy and the market segmentation strategy together to achieve business growth. When the differentiation strategy and the market segmentation strategy are used together by business organizations, it improves the competitive advantage for those organizations.

Customer Oriented/ Market Oriented Strategy Before 1950s, companies focused more on the product and the industrial technology in order to gain competitive advantage and to gain large market share. This phenomenon may be attributed to the fact that in every vertical business, there were only a few companies serving the market. However, as the number of companies increased in the market, the competition also increased. When the customers had many options to buy a product, the customer loyalty was dipping. Also, when the companies changed an attribute of the product, it was easy for the customers to switch to another product. This made the companies to think over their approach to the market. As a result companies started to focus more on the customer requirements than the product technologies. Customer became the most important factor for the business organizations. (Shelby D. Hunt, 2002).

The main component of the market oriented strategy is that all the activities of a business organization must cater to the needs of the customers. When the companies function without

caring about the customer needs, whatever, they produce may not satisfy the needs of the customers and ultimately, the customers will not buy those products and services which do not satisfy the requirements of the customers. Also it is important that the all the members of the marketing department must work as one team and must work towards achieving the same organizational goals. Integration of all the marketing activities will give the extra push for the companies to achieve their revenue targets and the customer targets. Some authors such as Shelby and Hunt (2002) argue that instead of setting target on the profit, companies must set target on the profits. There is a huge difference between the revenue and the profit. Even if the company achieves its revenue target, it is not necessarily mean that the company was profitable. The cost of the production, distribution, sales, etc. can have a huge toll on the profit of the company. Therefore, it is important for the company to focus on achieving the profit target by concentrating and constantly striving to exceed the expectations of the customers. The customers buying decision varies from market segment to segment. For example, a market segment that has low purchasing power will consider the price of the product or service as the main trigger for taking a buying decision. A marketing segment of a niche market will never mind the price of the product, but will look for the brand name, quality, etc. Therefore, by understanding the customer requirements, companies can sell their products winning over the competition. Marketing is a process where the company tries to attract the customers to their products and services and builds a brand around their products. The customers in return buy those products in order to satisfy their requirements (Pelbani, 1981).

Market orientation will help a company to be up to date with the changes happening in the market, so that the company can face any challenge posed by the market or customers. When a

company gives utmost importance for the market environment and customer requirements, it will integrate all its activities towards the market orientation. Therefore, the market orientation strategy will help business organizations to align all their business activities based on the realities of the market. For example, a company that adopts the market oriented strategy will develop its recruitment policies that match with the market realities. Also, it will develop a work culture that adopts to the market environment. This strategy will help a company to evolve a long tern business perspective for the company. The market orientation strategy to an extent fills the gap between the market segmentation strategy and the resource based marketing strategy, by developing the internal skills of the employees to match up with the customer requirements and to match up with the market environments (Ruekert, 2002).

4 Ps Strategy in Marketing

As the market keeps on changing and it is very hard to find out the buying behavior of the customers, it has been a challenge for the marketing managers to package a suitable marketing mix for each markets. Many marketing managers were thinking of capturing a greater market share by introducing a perfect marketing mix for the companies. Many companies packaged their marketing strategies with various factors. In 1960, McCarthy (1960) through his wide reaching researches on marketing techniques came up with the idea of marketing mix that can be used by the companies in order to gain competitive advantage. McCarthy (1960) called this perfect mix of marketing as 4 Ps, which were Product, Price, Place, and Promotion.

Product: The main content of the marketing mix is the product. First, a company which enters into a new market must understand the market and develop only the products that the market requires. By understanding the customer requirements and the external market environments, companies can decide on the type of product that they can manufacture and sell (Schullz, et al (1993). Price: Pricing is also very important in the marketing mix. Most of the consumers consider the price as an important factor when it comes to taking the buying decision. The price of the product must vary based on the type of the product and the type of the market, purchasing power of the consumers, demand for the product, etc. (Schullz, et al (1993) Place: The place can refer to the market where the product is being sold or the place where the product is being manufactured. The place holds the strategic importance because any business organization must enter in to a market only where they can sell their products successfully. For example, a company that has major interests in selling the pork must not spend time, energy, and money to enter into the middle east market where the majority of the population does not eat pork and the popular culture in the middle east hates pork eating. Likewise, a company that sells beef must be very careful when entering in to the Indian market where beef eating is considered a religious taboo. Therefore, the place component of the marketing mix is very important and plays a crucial role in the growth of the company. Also, the place where the company manufactures its products is very crucial. For example, countries like India and China provides cheap labor and high quality skilled labors. This will help the global companies to save lots of money on the cost of production. The Zoho Corporation which has most of its clients in the North America and Europe, maintains its software developing center at Chennai, Indian because

of the large availability of software engineers in India who are cost effective when compared to their European or American counterparts (Schullz, et al (1993).

Promotion: Even when a company has a great product with a competitive price tag, if it does not promote its products, the consumers may never come to know that such a product even exists in the market. This means that the promotion of products has become a core marketing activity. Companies also use the celebrities to endorse their products and services as part of their promoting activities (Schullz, et al (1993).

Can Marketing Strategy Bring Competitive Advantage for Companies?

What s the purpose of the marketing strategies in companies? What role the marketing strategies play in a company? Mohr et al (2010) argues that the main purpose of the marketing strategy is to create competitive advantage for the company to win over the competition in the market. The better the marketing strategy, the better will be the competitiveness of the company and the profitability of the company. Therefore, there is a direct connection between the marketing strategies and the competitive advantage for companies. What is the competitive advantage? According to Mohr et al (2010) competitive advantage is the process of creating innovative value/ unique values for the customers in comparison with the values provided by the competitors in the market. This means, companies must not only provide the values to the consumers, but these values must of unique and better than the values provided by the competitors in the existing market. The values offered by the companies must be unique because, in todays market, copying the products has become the order of the day. Every product and

service is being copied in no time. The markets are flooded with cloned products which are very difficult to differentiate by the consumers. However, these products which do not have the differentiation quality will not survive in the market for a long time. These companies will never gain a long term brand value in the market if they do not provide or bring the differentiation into their products and services. A unique value to the customer can be defined as creating products that are very difficult for the competitors to clone or imitate. This uniqueness will function as the barrier to enter into the market for the competitors and in turn it will provide the competitive advantage to the company (Mohr et al, 2010). How do companies gain this uniqueness? There are many ways to achieve this uniqueness and the competitive advantage and the marketing strategies are definitely an effective method to bring the uniqueness to the products and services offered by the company. In this manner a great responsibility for the success of the company rely on the marketing mangers in the companies who must develop effective marketing strategies. Also, creating profit for the companies should be gained through developing long term sustainable marketing strategies. The key terms here are the long term and sustainability. The marketing strategies drafted by the marketing managers must consider the long term growth of the company. For this purpose, the marketing managers must understand both internal environment of the company and the external environment of the market and develop marketing strategies that will take care of the future problems that the company may face. Also, the marketing strategies must ensure the sustainability of the profitability of the company. The sustaining of the profitability of the company for long term is a real challenge faced by the marketing and sales managers. Here, the marketing managers must also study the core competencies of the company and put in use of the core competencies effectively in order to gain greater market share.

Tools to Develop Marketing Strategies

In order to develop effective marketing strategies, the managers can use several techniques or tools available/ developed by marketing strategists. We discussed earlier that while developing the marketing strategies, the marketing managers must understand both the internal and external environments. This means, the marketing managers must identify and understand the internal strengths of the company/ core competencies of the company and the internal weaknesses of the company and also the external situation of the market. The market is being shaped continuously by the changing demands and requirements of the customers. The offerings of the companies must reflect these changes happening in the market. This section will discuss some of the marketing strategy tools that can be used by the marketing managers when drafting the marketing strategies (Brian Smith, 2005).

PESTEL Technique for Developing Marketing Strategy

The PESTEL tool is an effective marketing strategy tool that helps the managers to understand the macro business environment. The PESTEL tool allows the marketing managers in a company to understand the external market environment in which a company operates. By understanding the external business environment, the marketing managers will be able to develop an effective marketing strategy. The PESTEL is a short form for Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, and Legal factors that will influence the way a company will operate in a given market/ country.

Political Environment For any business that enters into a market, the political environment of the country affects its business. The conducive political atmosphere is mandatory for running a business without any hindrance. If there is a political turmoil in the country, the businesses that operate in that particular country will affect the growth, revenue and the profitability of the country. For example, the continuous political turmoil in the African region affects the growth of that economy which in turns affects the functioning of the companies in that market. This proves the concept that in order to run the business effectively, a company must understand the political environment of the country. Also, the markets can differ based on the political system in which they function. The economy of the countries are defined and determined by the political system followed in the country. The economies can be classified based on the political system as closed economies, open economies and mixed economies. For example, the Western countries follow democratic system and offer an open economic system where there is little control for the governments and the companies manage their activities themselves. On the other hand, leftist countries follow a closed economic system where the government will have greater control over the functioning of the companies. In this set up the government introduces rigid systems to control the business activities. There are some mixed economies where they follow both open economical systems and closed economical systems. India is an apt example for the mixed economic system because its political system still has some kind of control over the functioning of companies (Boddewyn et al, 1994).

Economic Environment

The marketing strategies must take care of the economical environment of the market in which they operate. This is very much relevant in todays market scenario. Most of the countries are still under the effects of the global economic recession where the spending by the consumers has gone down affecting the revenue for the companies which operate in those markets. The economic slowdown has affected the profitability of the companies worldwide. Therefore, it is very crucial for the companies which plan to enter into the new markets and expand their business worldwide to analyze the economic environment of the market they plan to enter. For example, if the country a company plans to enter into is under economic recession, the company that enters into that market will suffer huge loss. Therefore, they have to enter into a market which provides growth opportunities for the business. For example, the emerging markets such as India, China, Brazil, Russia, South Africa etc. are growing very fast when compared to the other countries. Investing into these markets will provide long term growth opportunities for the multination companies which plan to expand their business into the new markets.

Social Environment

Why social environment is very important for the marketing strategy? The answer is very simple: the social environment of the consumers influences the buying behavior and the buying decisions of the consumers. The consumers in any market are shaped by the culture of the society. For example, the eating habits of the consumers in India will be shaped by the social environment in India. Most of the Indians are vegetarians because it is part of their social environment. Likewise, the Arabian countries may not work on Fridays because of their social and religious

sentiments. Therefore, the social environment of a market plays a key role in the buying behavior of the population. The marketing managers must be sensitive to the social environment of the market before drafting their marketing strategies. One example would be promotion of the products. As promotion comes under the marketing function, the marketing managers must be very careful in using the promotional activities in some of the markets. Using bikini clad ladies in the promotional videos will be considered inappropriate in certain countries/ societies, such as the Arabian, Indian, Pakistan, etc.

Technological Environment

Technology plays a key role in shaping the market. One of the main reasons for the constant changes in the market is attributed to the new technological inventions. When a company operates in a particular market, it must understand the technological environment of that country/ market. For example, if a company uses credit card payments as the main option for payment in the under developed countries, their business will fail due to the fact that the consumers in the under developed countries are not used to the credit cards. Likewise, if a company use online marketing techniques in a country which does not have internet penetration, then their marketing activities will be a failure. These factors highlight the importance of understanding the technological environment of the market before developing the marketing strategies.

Environmental Factors

As the consumers globally are becoming aware of the environmental pollutions due to the industrialization, the consumers prefer the environmental friendly products. This has been understood by the companies. Also, many countries have put in environmental related legislations that restrict the companies from taking any anti- environmental activities. In the case of software companies, the environmental factors do not apply very much. The software companies add less carbon foot print when compared to the other industries.

Legal Environment

The legal structure of a country will have great impact on the way a company functions in a market. There is no similar law in all the countries. Countries introduce unique legislations to protect their interests. Sometimes this means protecting the interests of the ruling government. A better example for legal environment affecting a business will be Googles business in China. Google had to move out of China because of the legislation in China which targeted Google and limited its freedom. Therefore, the marketing strategies must consider the legal framework of the country in which it operates.

SWOT Analysis Tool

While the PESTEL tool will help the companies to analyze the external market environments and align the internal environment with the external, the companies need to understand the internal environment thoroughly. The SWOT Analysis is an effective tool that will help the marketing managers to analyze the micro environments, both internal and the external environments. The

SWOT is the short form for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and the Threats analysis for the company.

Strengths: The Strength analysis will analyze the internal strengths of the company, such as the employee pool, technical superiority, market leadership, etc. of the company. By finding out the internal strengths, companies can enhance those skills and use them as competitive advantage against their competitors.

Weaknesses: Every company will have one or the other weaknesses which will be utilized by the competitors to win over them. By analyzing the weaknesses, companies can try to reduce those weaknesses and try to turn them into their strengths.

Opportunities: The opportunity analysis will help the company to know the business opportunities that are available to them in the market. By knowing the opportunities available, the companies can prepare themselves to target those opportunities and win the deals.

Threats: The threat analysis will help the companies to identify the market/ business threats they may face in the market. This will make the companies to become better prepared against the threats in the market.

Internet Marketing Strategy

In todays market environment, the marketing function has been changed by the advancements in the technology. Most of the marketing is done through the internet and a large customer base is moving towards the online market. This means that as the internet users keep on increasing day by day, the markets are moving towards online which are often called the virtual markets, where companies sell their products online and the consumers buy the products and services through internet. This has redefined the marketing or promotional process. While the internet market has reduced the cost of marketing when compared to the traditional marketing, internet marketing is very complex than the traditional marketing (Strauss & Frost, 2008). The internet marketing has redefined the way the traditional market worked. The following are some of the benefits brought in by the internet marketing. Marketing cost: The internet marketing very low cost that the traditional marketing. In traditional marketing companies resorted to the use of celebrity branding to easily capture the market. The celebrity branding and other traditional branding where costing the company in a huge way, which will in turn have an impact on the pricing of the product and services. On the other hand, the internet marketing is low cost and easy to use. Easy Market Entry: In the traditional market, there are many barriers for the companies to enter in to a new foreign market. Some of the barriers are government legislations, high competitiveness in the market, high brand value of the companies and products, etc. In the Internet market, a company can easily get the market access and can easily break the barriers to market entry.

Business Knowledge: The internet market gives easy access to the business knowledge of the other companies. The new companies can always use the business experience gained by the

competitors and follow their steps or improve upon the existing business knowledge (Drummond and Ensor, 2005).

Easy Turn of Fortunes: The internet marketplace is very complex in that the fortunes of the company can easily change. Also, the internet market place is highly unpredictable. The maintaining of the customer loyalty is very difficult in the internet market where the customers will easily switch their preference even without any major reasons. Even the companies with very low investment can become the leaders in the internet market. Google started with very little investment, but it is now one of the leading companies in the world. Even though Microsoft was in the software business for many years, Google which is relatively a new company has the potential to over throw Microsoft and become the number one software company in the world.

No Need for Huge Capital: The companies in the internet market place do not need huge capital investments because they do not need any physical structures. For example, the ecommerce giant eBay is one of the largest companies in selling all kinds of commodities. However their store is virtual and they do not maintain huge inventories.

Conclusion This chapter comprehensively discussed the various theories on the marketing strategies. In this chapter, the marketing concepts by various leading authors were analyzed. The discussion progressed from the tradition marketing strategies, their uses, marketing strategy tools and techniques, and moved to the modern internet marketing concepts.

Research Methodology Introduction

It is important to analyze why and how a particular methodology is used in any research. This chapter discusses on the particular methodology used and justifies the importance of the methodology here. The research methodology helps to stay close to the research. In addition, it provides the flawless path to reach the expected destination without fail. The intention of this research methodology is to provide an overview on the research approach, followed by its strategy, data collection principles and procedures, purpose of the research instrument, data analysis techniques, and relevant standards applied to improve the quality. Selecting Research Type

Understanding the research type is yet another important factor that one has to remember before selecting a research methodology. There is no boundary in deciding the type of appropriate research types. The research type depends on the kind of the business and in what category does it fall. Though there are various research categories, following are the main research types categorized by Yin (2003): namely, (1) Exploratory Research, (2) Descriptive Research, and (3) Explanatory Research. Exploratory Research

The process of discovering the facts of the research with its concepts is known as exploratory research. The exploratory research is performed when there is no wide information about the topic is available. Here, we get an opportunity to identify new subjects about the research topic. We will get wide idea to perform the research when we use the exploratory research.

Descriptive Research

The descriptive research as name suggests provides the complete information about the research topic. It gives information on all the subject such as about what the research topic is, how it is worked on, where it has to be performed and scheduled, and when is the perfect instance of time and who are the people involved in the research. It is the descriptive research which describes the complete character of the study. Explanatory Research

This type of research explains how the research is performed and what are the reasons involved in performing the research. It mainly concentrates on the cause-effect relationship of the attributes involved (Wilson, 2003). Explanation here describes the main reason that is responsible for the initiation of the research. It primarily provides the answers for the how and why of the research. The main objective of this research is to identify the marketing strategies that a software company will follow to obtain the competitive advantage for their business contenders. To explain this objective, I decided to choose the descriptive research type to explain the same in a better way. Effective Research Method

For a descriptive research type, one should use an effective research method. It is always good to use the scientific research method while performing the descriptive research. There are two types of scientific research methods. The one describing the quality of the research topic is called as Qualitative Research Method, and the other one describing the quantity of the research topic is

called as Quantitative Research Method. My research utilizes the topic to be described by analyzing the facts of the descriptive data and mathematical information. Therefore, I have used the qualitative research methodology to describe the research type better. In addition, it also requires analyzing the total value of the research topic, in simple words, the size of the research topic, so I have used the Quantitative Methodology. Thus as per the requirement of my research, I have used both the scientific research methods to construct my research well. Impact of Qualitative and Quantitative Methods A successful business starts with the analysis of the customers desires and likes. It is extensively important to understand the customers needs to obtain a successful turnaround in the revenue of the business. As my core customers are the software technology people, my research involves qualitative methods to identify and analyze the highly technology oriented market of software industry. In addition, it is required to conduct thorough close interviews covering the entire information about the subject, its literature review, and so on. Software industry lies in highly competing category. It uses many innovative and effective marketing strategies that are highly competing in its own unique way. It uses pioneering techniques to catch hold of the market and its share. To identify the best marketing techniques, one has to undergo a thorough study on marketing strategy extensively. To understand these skills, I take the qualitative and quantitative principles together to measure the usefulness of this research as it is important to measure the quality of the marketing techniques. The Quantitative research provides the importance of the marketing principles extensively. In this way, when I bring the quantitative and qualitative research methods together, provides the complete picture on what the research is all about and also gives extensive idea on reaching the required result.

Merits and Demerits of Qualitative and Quantitative Methods

The open mind principle of qualitative research method plays a vital role and thereby behaves as the major merit of qualitative research. Along with open mind techniques, it also provides an interactive method while researching. It talks about the complete information or at least maximum information can be obtained using this qualitative research method. Bryman & Bell, in 2007, even mentioned that the main advantage of qualitative research method is its open and interactive method of researching providing maximum knowledge on the subject. Whereas in the qualitative research method, the data collection is often obtained by shooting the maximum questions to the respondents, forcing them to reply with descriptive answer. I should ask more questions, all with open characteristics, that enable the respondents to give a vast answer. From their answers, there is possibility to ask more questions to make it clearer and descriptive. Asking more questions triggers to identify new information that becomes the turning point of the research offering me great results. Especially in vast field such as software domain, where new information and inventions are sprouting each day, it is important to shoot open questions to squeeze maximum information as answers. Asking reasonable and quality questions develop brain-storming and this in-turn results in building good relationship between the researcher and the respondents. Such interview experience results in authen.tic researching result providing greater quality. The major demerit of Qualitative research method is that it is impossible to collect vast information from a small group of people. In addition, the quality of the information depends on the quality of the respondent. If the quality of respondent is poor, this might bring poor quality of

information or even wrong information. It is highly important to choose the people who are capable in providing the information before interviewing. During such instance, it is the quantitative research type that supports the researcher. The Quantitative research type analyses the issue more scientifically and also in a most accurate manner because it includes more numerical values to calculate the desired destination. Designing Research Instruments

The design of the research instruments is highly important to produce the quality research result. Research instruments here includes the following, namely, conducting interviews, preparing questionnaires, conducting surveys and its study, and so on. How these research instruments are prepared and organized plays a vital role in obtaining the research result. Understanding the importance of designing the research instruments, I have developed my research instruments carefully to provide maximum result. I have used questionnaires, interviews, and surveys as my effective research instruments for this research. I understand that the computer software companies are highly competitive and with highly busy professionals. It is important to develop questionnaires and interviews intelligently and reasonably in a good format, otherwise, the respondents might not be interested. Uninvolved respondents might also be not interested in providing the quality answers and replies. This will lead to an unhealthy research results. Keeping all these things in mind, I have generated questionnaires for the interviews and surveys in such a way that interests the respondents and helps in providing quality results. I have used effective marketing strategy that are compatible both small to medium size software businesses to make themselves masters in the competitive advantage. Following are few of the example ideas that I use in this research which are effective for small to medium size software businesses:

1. Identifying the innovative marketing strategies, effective for both national and international market environments. 2. Identifying the relationship between the competitive advantage and marketing principles. 3. Identifying the efficient techniques that are compatible for the small to medium business in the international arena. 4. Identifying the techniques used by the software companies as a competitive edge over their large contenders. 5. Comparing the traditional and online marketing strategy and identifying the accurate marketing style that is best suit for the particular software business. 6. Based on the research, identifying the new marketing techniques and recommending the same to enhance the business growth widely providing valid evidences. Data Collection Method The data collection stage is very important part of any research study. For this research, the data collection has two phases, such as primary data collection and secondary data collection. The primary data collection will gather information from the research participants by the researcher. The secondary data collection phase will gather information from the existing literature. This will be done after reviewing the existing literature on the research topic. The researcher has reviewed a set of literature on the topic and analyzed them. The primary data collection will have three methods, such as interviews, questionnaires, and the field surveys.

Data Collection Method: Secondary Data Collection The secondary data in this context refers to the existing knowledge about the researched subject. The secondary data will provide as the theoretical base for the research paper. The researcher of

this study will be collecting the secondary data from books penned by leading authors on the marketing strategy theories, journal articles on the marketing strategies and software marketing, newspaper articles about the research topic, and the internet resources. As the authors of the books, journal articles, etc. have already done their research on the topic, the secondary data can be used to validate the primary data collected by the researcher. The primary and the secondary data gathered will be used to find out the research objectives and to fill the gap in the theoretical foundation of this research study.

Data Collection: primary Data Collection The primary data refers to the research data collected first hand by the researcher from the research respondents. For this research, the researcher will collect the primary data by using the research instruments such as interviews, questionnaire and field surveys. Interviews Once the researcher reviewed the existing literature on the research topic, the researcher collected valuable data by interviewing the managers at Zoho Corporation. The interview questions were prepared with a view to get specific information on the research objectives. The researcher selected the qualitative approach to the data collection. The qualitative approach refers to the gathering of the information to know the why and how of the research topic (Yin, 1994). Here the interviewer tries to go deep in to the meaning of the information provided by the marketing managers at Zoho Corporation.

Questionnaires

The researcher used the research instrument, questionnaire to collect specific data from the research participants. While the interviews will help the researcher to go deep in to the research topic, the questionnaires will help the researcher to get very specific answers from the research participants. I prepared the questionnaires with an aim to collect specific data in order to find out the research objectives. The questionnaire was distributed to the marketing teams at Zoho Corporation and the data was collected. This data is analyzed in the following chapter.

Field Surveys Field surveys are useful to get a first hand observation about how the marketing campaigns and marketing activities function in a company. The field surveys will give the extra information which cannot be obtained through interviews and questionnaires. I did some field surveys and observed the marketing activities of Zoho Corporation. These surveys helped the researcher to understand the marketing functions very clearly.

Conclusion This chapter presented s detailed discussion on the research methodology that will be used for this research study. In this chapter, the researcher explained the data collection methods, research approach, data analysis methods, and the research instruments that will be used to collect the research data, etc.